Semester Projects

Name	Topic	Hypotheses	Conceptual Framework	Anchor-Store Readings	Studies	Database to be used?
Abbie Alsene	The mental health of student leaders at community colleges	Factors that stress student leaders? Or, perhaps more broadly, the factors that may cause community college students to need mental health services?	Astin's theory of student involvement Goffman's theory of self-presentation	Mental health care in the college community, by Kay and Schwartz Mental health of college students, by Morrow	Mental healt services at community colleges
Michael Cermak	Do credentialed students make better workers?	Does receipt of a certificate or associate's degree lead to an earnings premium in the labor market?	Human capital theory	Higher learning, greater good, by McMahon Investment in human capital, by Schultz The economic gospel: The economic poser of schooling, by Grubb and Lazerson The new vocationalism in communituy colleges, by Bragg	Economic returns to credentials
Mark Coykendall	Do faculty development programs increase faculty participation, faculty retention, teaching skills, etc.	Is participation will correlated with greater retention, job satisfaction, other outcomes?	Transformational learning theory	Learning as transformation, by Mezirow --See books listed below for Braandon Hensley	Faculty development in community colleges faculty job satisfaction
Gabe Estill	The unique character of rural community colleges	Are rural community colleges different (along specified traits) than urban or suburban colleges?	Rural sociology	Critical rural theory, by Thomas Rural community colleges: Teaching learning and leading in the heartland, by Eddy & Murray	Rural community colleges
Maegan Gorham	Service learning and civic engagement activities in cc's	Do service learning and civic engagement activities enhance student engagement and involvement?	Student involvement theory Student quality of effort Dewey's Theory of Progressive Education	Measuring the quality of student experiences, by Pace Recollections and reflections, by Pace Student involvement, by Astin	Service learning in community colleges	Community college survey of student engagement
Jennie Hemingway	Threat assessment teams at community colleges	[Are some community colleges more likely to form these teams than others? Do models of coordinating threat assessment at four-year colleges meet the needs of community colleges, as peceived by community college leades?]	Organizational models for coordinating instituional responses to threats	Threat assessment teams: A model for coordinating the institutional response and reducing legal liability when college students threaten suicide, by Penven and Janosik	Threat assessment in higher education Disruptive students in community colleges
Brandon Hensley	Faculty reward structures at community colleges	[Relationship between job satisfaction on the one hand and pay, working conditions, etc., on the other]	Herzberg's two-factor theory	Community college faculty: At work in the new economy, by Levin et al. Community college faculty: Overlooked and undervalued, by Townsend and Twombly A profile of the community college professoriate, by Outcalt.	Faculty profession at community colleges Faculty job satisfaction at community colleges
Edith List	International students at community colleges	What factors predict female international students' persistence at community colleges in the United States?	Terenzini and Reason (2005) college impact framework Gender & Cultural Capital Theory - Dumais (2002) based on Bourdieu (1997)	Higher education and international student mobility, by Guruz Understanding the international student experience, by Montgomery Internationalizing the community college, by Romano	International students at community colleges
Julie O'Brien	Remediation at the community college level	How does remediation affect the graduation rates of community college students who transfer to a four-year institution?	Bean and Eaton's Psychological Model of College Student Retention			BPS
Melissa Pitcock	The personal fiscal investment of students in their own education	Do students who pay at lease some of their educational expenses out of pocket achieve "better" outcomes than students whose parents pay for everything.	Econommic or sociological theories that explain the link between psychological investment and fiscal investment. Perhaps theories used in studies by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or by Laura Hamilton Also, perhaps theories of student retention.
Patrice Prud'homme	How do noncredit STEM programs measure out in labor market outcomes?	What is the correlation of noncredit STEM programs to the credit, regression analysis with models	Human capital theory (Beck, 1962, 1975)	Hagedorn & Purnamasari (2012)GAO (2004, 2012) Jacobs & Dougherty (2006) Carnevale et al. (2010): Help wanted Counting the hidden assets (2009) Van Noy et al. (2009)	Jepsen, C., Troske, K., & Coomes, P. (2009). The Labor-market returns to community college degrees, diplomas, and certificates.
Christian Roldan Santos	Institutional barriers to successful math remediation completion and retention of students of color in community colleges	[Factors that contribute to minority student success in developmental math courses]	Critical race theory	Back to school, by Mike Rose In the basement of the Ivory Tower, by Prof. X Are community colleges underprepared for underprepared students, by Schuetz and Barr The politics of remediation : institutional and student needs in higher education, by Soliday		Remedial math at community colleges Minority students and remedial education
Amelia Wood	Job satisfacction of community college faculty members	Factors that contribute to job satisfaction	Hertzberg's two factor theory?	--See books listed above for Braandon Hensley	See also listings of faculty studies, above.